Ashes of Honor

Tybalt and I walked to the cafeteria in the sort of silence that spoke, very loudly, to the effort he was making to stay on his feet. I wanted to suggest he shift to feline form and let me carry him, but I was afraid if he did that, he wouldn’t have the strength to shift back. Eventually, the bright blue cafeteria door came into view. Quentin pushed it open a second later and held it for us, a worried expression on his face. That expression deepened when he got a good look at my clothes.

“Toby…?” he said, in a small voice.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Could probably use some cookies and orange juice, but I’m okay. Tybalt needs help.”

“I assure you, I am less injured than I appear,” said Tybalt. “I am simply conserving my strength while I recover from the effort of holding October’s intestines inside her body.”

Quentin looked between the two of us, paling. Then he stepped aside. “Li’s getting the first aid kit.” He looked past us to the hall. “Where’s Chelsea?”

“Why would Chelsea be here?” I asked, leading Tybalt into the cafeteria. He was leaning on me harder all the time, and I could smell fresh blood again. He was bleeding somewhere under his clothes from an injury I hadn’t seen. That wasn’t good.

“Because I bent your luck and hers together,” said Li Qin. She was spreading the contents of a first aid kit out on one of the room’s oddly shaped white tables. “She should have gone right to where you were.”

“She did,” I said. “That’s why we’re alive.”

“What?” Li Qin looked up, and paled. “Oh, sweet Titania…”

“Hasn’t been seen in a long time, and wouldn’t help us if she were here,” I said grimly.

“I think I might want to take one of those seats,” said Tybalt, in a thoughtful tone. “They seem pleasant. They seem like a good place to wait while the room stops spinning…”

Then he collapsed.

People in real life never collapse like people in the movies, who always seem to fall like trees, or slump gently into whoever’s trying to support them. Tybalt pitched forward and folded up at the same time, turning from a man who was at least trying not to knock me over into more than a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight. I yelped, scrambling to get a better grip on him. All I succeeded in doing was cushioning his fall as he bore me down to the cafeteria floor.

“Toby!” squawked Quentin. Li Qin said something in startled-sounding Chinese. Then both of them were next to me, working together to try to pull Tybalt off the floor.

Between the two of them, they were able to lever him off me. I scrambled out from under him, terrified that every move I made was just going to make things worse. He didn’t move. I took off my—his, it was his to begin with, and, oh, Maeve, he couldn’t die on me—took off my jacket and folded it into a pillow, sliding it under his head before fumbling with blood-sticky fingers for his pulse. It was there, but it was nowhere near strong enough for my liking.

“We need a healer,” I said, standing. “This isn’t going to be fixed with aspirin and gauze.”

Li Qin looked sick. “We have no healer. The closest we ever came was Yui, and she…”

“Died the same time January did, I know.” Tybalt wasn’t moving. The closest healer I knew of was Jin, at Shadowed Hills.

Shadowed Hills.

“I’m an idiot,” I said. “Quentin, give me your phone. Mine’s dead.” Quentin fished his phone out of his pocket and tossed it to me. I clicked it open, scrolling to the contacts. As I expected, Shadowed Hills was second on the list.

The phone only rang twice before Etienne picked up, beginning, “Shadowed Hi—”

“I need you to grab Jin and get to Tamed Lightning right now,” I interrupted. “It’s an emergency.”

Etienne hesitated. “October? I don’t…”

“Tybalt’s hurt! Don’t argue with me, just get over here.”

“I can’t run off with the Duke’s personal physician without better reason than a friend of yours being injured.”

“How about he got hurt because we were looking for your daughter, huh?” That wasn’t strictly true. For the moment, it was close enough. Etienne didn’t say anything, and so I pressed on, saying, “There’s no healer here. I can’t drive him to a place where he can get cared for. Duchess Riordan is one of the people who snatched Chelsea, and she has her right now. Now please, get Jin, and get over here.” I glanced at Tybalt. He was so still…“Please. We don’t have much time.”

“Tell Countess O’Leary to open the wards,” said Etienne. Then the line went dead.

I clicked Quentin’s phone shut, handing it back to him. April was nowhere to be seen. I cleared my throat and said, as calmly as I could manage, “April, I need you.”

There was a popping sound, accompanied by the strong smell of ozone, before she said, from behind me, “Yes?”

There was a time when that would have been enough to make me jump. How times have changed. “I need you to open an exception in the wards,” I said, turning to face her. “Sir Etienne is going to be teleporting in, accompanied by an Ellyllon healer. I apologize for inviting them without checking with you first, but it’s an emergency.”